


Working Hours

by Ailette



Series: Prussian Blue [2]
Category: Primeval
Genre: AU in so far that no one from the team ever died, Hurt/Comfort, Imported, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-05-19
Updated: 2009-05-19
Packaged: 2018-06-05 05:32:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,675
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6691612
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ailette/pseuds/Ailette
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Connor is confronted by Lester. It goes down quite differently from what Connor imagined.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Working Hours

**Author's Note:**

> (Originally posted at http://ailette.livejournal.com/41355.html)  
> Beta: fififolle   
> A/N: This is a follow-up to Clean Showers and takes place before 3.08 (mainly because I only saw the episode after writing this).

Sitting behind  Lorraine ’s desk, Connor was wondering what exactly he’d done to deserve this. Lester behaving like this. Lester sticking him here. Was it because he'd made his own way to work? Alright, so maybe using the tube hadn’t been the best idea Connor had ever had. And maybe it wasn’t about the tube at all and more about the fact that he’d fled from Lester’s flat as soon as he was fully dressed and the older man was out of sight. Maybe. He couldn’t know for sure what the reason was, but apparently it was a good enough one for his boss to spend the whole morning driving Connor insane. He’d thought Lester was a snarky bastard before; right now he was pretty certain he had a nicely developed sadistic streak to go with that. The point was if he had known he’d end up half-naked (and not in the enjoyable way) in the work place, he’d have been more careful from the beginning.

The working day had started relatively harmlessly, with just another gathering in Lester’s office. The whole team was there, but the only ones talking – or rather, yelling at the top of their lungs – were Cutter and Lester. Nothing new there, and Connor even overheard Stephen in a hushed conversation with Becker, discussing the pros and cons of ice climbing versus rock climbing. Danny, at least, was a bit more subtle about it – he just stared at one fixed point above Sarah’s head without blinking and grunted every now and then. So, really, no one had been paying much attention to why they were actually here. Ergo it was completely uncalled for when Lester ushered everyone back to work (sparing one last glare for the Professor) except Connor.

“Mr. Temple, why don’t you have a seat? I got the impression that you were rather preoccupied whilst I was talking.” 

The way he said it, utterly serious and in boss-mode, and the use of his last name made Connor do as he was told immediately, head ducked and avoiding eye contact. Of all the things he’d wished for to happen, after this morning, private time with Lester was very, very low on his list. He expected Lester to get back behind his desk, fold his fingers and glare at Connor for a good five minutes before the lecture would start.

Instead, the older man took hold of the chair’s arms Connor was sitting in and pushed him back a fraction (nearly giving Connor a heart attack in the process) before he leaned back to comfortably perch on the edge of his glass desk. Connor felt like he was shrinking under the firm gaze Lester bestowed upon him from above with his arms folded across his chest. No man had the right to look this sexy with bright red braces out in the open. It just wasn’t right.

“So, what did you think about while we were discussing work-related matters?”

Connor swallowed once, twice before he came to the conclusion that mentioning showers, bathrooms, the tube’s delay or re-runs of Doctor Who would probably get him killed, or worse, fired. The problem was that his brain failed to come up with any other prompts to explain his absent-mindedness that didn’t involve childishly pointing out that he wasn’t the only one with his head in the clouds.

“I thought so,” Lester said, somehow managing to sound both smug and exasperated at once. “So I suppose we should do something about your little ADD tendencies.”

And from this point on things got a little fuzzy, because five minutes later Connor found himself sitting behind Lorraine’s desk, playing assistant. It had something to do with the woman being down with a bad cold and him having to ‘stay close so he would finally learn his lesson’. Neither was a real reason to do a job he was completely unqualified for, especially since he knew Lester had already fired the two temps who at least knew what they were doing when their boss asked them to forward Form 73b to Major Ryan. He knew of course that Lester wouldn’t entrust him with too important assignments but that didn’t help him with the too difficult ones. Like standing in front of his boss’s desk – the chair had vanished into the corner behind Lester – and trying desperately to keep up with the flood of words he was supposed to write down and later type on the computer.

He was going cross-eyed by the third sentence, caught somewhere between babbling excuses and begging Lester to speak slower. Lester sighed, clearly just exasperated this time, and started again. The only hope Connor had was that the other man would realise soon that Connor was only holding up his work and that no lesson was worth such a loss in efficiency. Because he was bent on efficiency, right?

“Connor. _Mr. Temple_. Whatever relatively intelligent life form is in there?”

Connor’s eyes snapped back up to find Lester directly in front of him and before he could stop it, he was flashing back to this morning, when Lester had been even closer and there had been fewer layers of clothing between them. He swallowed hard before he produced a weak, “What?”

“Oh, goody, someone’s home,” Lester said dryly and pointed to Connor’s unreadable notes. “I asked how exactly you were planning on typing those funny symbols into the computer later.”

“I can read it,” Connor protested meekly. It earned him a quizzically raised eyebrow and slight shake of the head before Lester started talking in the monotone and emotionless voice that meant Connor should be taking down his words. He started writing hastily, not entirely convinced that he really would be able to decipher it later. The whole thing got even harder (and the pun was so, so not intended) when Lester positioned himself directly at the younger man’s shoulder, reading along as he was dictating. The little puffs of breath that ghosted over Connor’s neck and ear made concentrating that much harder, not to mention the nice smell of the unobtrusive aftershave his boss was wearing. He’d seen the little bottle in the bathroom, of course. He might have even opened and used it last Saturday when Lester wasn’t home. Purely by accident. But neither was comparable to the rich and smooth scent of the aftershave combined with the warm smell that was Lester himself.

Shaking a little, Connor took a deep breath to calm himself down. It didn’t help. Instead, the words in front of him seemed to blur and his head was spinning ever so slightly. Then Lester had his arm around him and the goose bumps on his neck told him that his boss was speaking again, but he couldn’t understand a word of it. The only thing he could think about was that Lester was this close, even after what had happened this morning and he had to know what this was doing to Connor--

A second later, reality hit him on the head again, hard, when the office’s door flew open. It was Cutter, apparently back for a second round of verbal sparring with his boss. Lester sighed and drew his arm back to face the intruder and slowly, it dawned on Connor that he’d just been pointed at something in his notes again. Still a little unsteady on his feet, he caught Cutter’s questioning gaze and took it as his cue to flee from the office with a bright red face and burning ears. 

Sitting at  Lorraine ’s desk brought an unexpected feeling of safety. Clear air, no one and nothing demanding his attention and all he could hear was the hum of the computer and the voices of the two men once again arguing behind closed doors. 

In the quiet of his temporary workstation, he contemplated what the hell was going on here. He’d thought Lester would maybe use his inappropriate feelings to blackmail him into leaving the ARC, or empty the dishwasher every evening, or publicly humiliate him, or something like that. But this? He couldn’t even say for sure that he knew what ‘this’ was. Sexual harassment came to mind, but could you call it that after your boss had cornered you in his bathroom with a raging hard-on for him? He didn’t think so. So, what exactly was Lester doing?

He didn’t find an answer until after Cutter had long since returned to his own office and Lester ordered him back inside. Five ‘Oops, I dropped my pen. Would you mind picking it up for me?’, three ‘You’ve got some lint on your clothes. Let me get that.’ and one _accidentally_ tipped over glass of water later, Connor was sitting in his boxer shorts, blushing to the roots of his hair behind  Lorraine ’s desk again. This time, he didn’t feel calm or anywhere near safe. Lester wasn’t harassing him, he was _playing_ with him. And enjoying himself a lot, if that twinkle in his eyes he had before he went to ‘look for a dry pair of trousers’ for Connor was anything to go by. 

The ridiculously tight jeans he came back with made Connor groan inwardly and flush even further. He didn’t even want to know how Lester had got them. Judging by the length of time he’d been gone, he might have gone out and bought them specifically to torture Connor. So, really, he was insanely glad when the Anomaly Detection Device went off.

Lester gave a smirking half-wave as Connor stumbled all over himself to get to the dangerous probably carnivorous creatures awaiting him and away from his boss. It seemed like a good trade off at the time. The wolf-whistles and joking flirt attempts from Abby, Stephen and Sarah on the other hand didn’t. He also didn’t quite understand why Cutter was glaring at him.

***

Six and a half hours later, with his head hurting and his stomach lurching wildly at every movement he made, he wished he had never left the safety of the ARC. In retrospect, Lester wasn’t as bad as an angry dinosaur three times his size who was trying to bite his head off. He went straight to the tube station after they’d arrived back at the ARC. Normally, he would have been hyperaware of the blood on his temple and all over his clothes (most of it thankfully not his), but right then and there, he was too exhausted to pay the curious bystanders any attention. The ride home took forever and made him miss the luxury of Lester’s car with its comfy seats and the soothing music of whatever opera had caught Lester’s fancy that day. Considering everything, he’d probably blown his chances of ever having one of those rides with the silent and yet strangely enjoyable company of his boss again. 

But as things stood, he was already thankful not to find his stuff on the street or on Lester’s doorstep and the key he’d been entrusted with still fitting into the lock. He just prayed that the older man was done with playing games for the day. 

“I’m home,” he announced hoarsely into the empty living room, remembering just in time that Lester hated it when he ‘sneaked into the flat without saying anything’. He could have saved himself the effort though, because no one answered and now that he thought about it, it would have been very unlikely for Lester to already be home. First indicator? The sun was still up. Yes, they were living in the same flat, but the only evenings Connor actually saw his boss here were Fridays. Only then Lester left work at  six o’clock sharp, arriving home about half an hour later. It was also the only day in the week Lester extensively used the kitchen, preparing meals that looked like they were delivered fresh from a five star restaurant for them.

But today wasn’t Friday. It was Tuesday afternoon and Connor would be on his own for at least another six to seven hours, maybe even until the next day if his boss decided to save time and sleep at the office. It had happened before, though Lester would never openly admit to it in front of his other employees. Worn out, Connor staggered over to the couch, to sit down for just a few minutes until his head stopped buzzing. He lay the house key down on the table with an effort, letting his head fall back against the soft back of the white couch afterwards with the feeling that he’d completed a practically impossible task. It hurt a little, even though the gash was on his forehead and he closed his eyes in a pained wince. 

The next time he opened them, it was to a different light. Not electrical though – more golden, bathing everything in an almost mystical glow and making the parquet painful to look at. He couldn’t have fallen asleep for more than an hour, two at most. But what had woken him up? He still felt tired enough to go right back to the world behind his closed lids. 

“Connor?”

Confused, Connor blinked and turned his head fractionally upwards to see Lester hovering over him. Huh. How’d he missed that? He blinked again, trying to shake the drowsy feeling. Apparently, he wasn’t fast enough, because Lester was looking worried which meant he had to still be dreaming or maybe even hallucinating. Not good.

“What are you doing here?” he asked, voice still a little hoarse. At least his thoughts were quickly clearing up again.

Lester frowned. “How hard did you get hit on the head? I _live_ here, Connor.”

Connor nearly laughed at that, but remembered the way his head had started to throb when he’d nodded at Abby as a way of saying good-bye earlier. “I know that. I mean, what are you doing here already? It’s not even dark yet.”

“I decided to come home early today,” Lester said dismissively, extending one hand to brush Connor’s hair back where it partly covered the wound. Something was wrong with the way he wouldn’t meet Connor’s eyes when he said it, but he couldn’t pinpoint what it was. Rather abruptly, Lester straightened up again, taking Connor’s elbow to pull him up as well.

“Bathroom,” he ordered and Connor jumped, only making it easier for the older man to drag him up and along. “We should clean that cut before it gets infected.”

“Oh. Right,” Connor agreed belatedly, distantly remembering on planning to do that before he’d fallen asleep.

Unusually careful, Lester sat him down on the clothes basket, making sure that he wasn’t about to keel over, and went to check the bathroom cabinets. He rattled through all four of them and snatched a flannel from the linen closet, depositing all in the sink before he vanished into the hall to come back with a small brown bottle of what looked like iodine. Connor winced as soon as he saw it. His mother had been very fond of using it on every little scratch he sustained as a child and the memories quite literally still burned in his mind. 

“Oh, don’t be such a wuss,” Lester chided distractedly as he wetted the flannel and repeated his earlier motion of holding Connor’s hair back. “How in God’s name did you get this anyway? I thought you were attacked by something with teeth big enough to take your whole head off, not just leave a bump and a scratch.”

Surprisingly, the cleaning itself wasn’t painful. Lester was using warm water and it felt quite nice, apart from the distant sting. “Becker accidentally rammed the butt of his rifle in my face,” he admitted miserably. How was it that he got injured all the time, but never from cool stuff? 

“Captain Becker is responsible for this? What in God’s name did I hire that moron for?” The flannel was pressed hard against the wound. 

“Ow!”

“Sorry,” Lester muttered immediately and checked to see if he had reopened the cut. There was no new blood, just a last smudge of dirt on Connor’s chin which he wiped off before tossing the flannel into the sink. He grabbed a plaster and the bottle of iodine. “I should fire him already. He’s getting everyone in more trouble than he’s actually worth.”

“That’s not –ow– true,” Connor hissed when the brown liquid touched his injured skin. “He’s –ow– kind of helpful at –ow– times. Abby’s good at –ow– reminding him –ow– of his duties – _ow_! How much of that stuff are you planning on using?”

“Keep talking and I’ll check if I have another one I could empty on you.”

Connor let out a little whine, but didn’t speak up again. Lester usually was very thorough when it came to following up on his threats. For now, he just applied the plaster though, crouching down and carefully checking that it wouldn’t fall off again in a minute. Apparently satisfied with his work, he nodded to himself and ran the hand he still had on Connor’s head to ruffle the younger man’s hair gently before he got up with a sigh.

“You should probably get some rest,” he suggested and then seemed to freeze a little as he saw his own hand caressing Connor’s scalp, like he wasn’t attached to the limb at all and it had made the decision to do so on its own. He quickly pulled it back, staring down at it for a second and then shifting his gaze to Connor before he sighed again.

“And I should get back to work,” he announced disquietingly and was only stopped from striding out of the bathroom in a cruel imitation of this morning by Connor’s hand closing quickly around his wrist. Eyebrows raised in question, he turned back.

“You said you came home early,” Connor murmured, eyes fixed on his fingers. 

“No, I didn’t.”

It didn’t sound like a protest, and it wasn’t meant to be, Connor knew. It was still a bit hard to think, but the pieces were very slowly falling into place. “You came home to check up on me,” he suggested more than stated. Lester didn’t reply, but Connor could feel how he tensed up. 

He hadn’t imagined it then, Lester really had been worried. And the way he’d ruffled Connor’s hair… a warm shiver ran down Connor’s spine. He’d never actually contemplated something like this. He’d just assumed that this, his crush or whatever it was on Lester, was a one-sided thing and would stay so. But… It didn’t look like Lester was about to say anything about the matter which meant it was up to him. Oh, he really hated these kinds of situations. He wasn’t very good at them. Never had been.

But this was important. Who knew if an opportunity like this would come along ever again? Lester with his walls down just enough to allow Connor to look behind the façade; probably without being aware of it. More than a little terrified, he locked eyes with the older man and gathered his courage.

“You actually like me,” he finally got out, voice shaking.

Lester’s jaw tensed and his lips drew into a thin white line. “I never said that,” he ground out, sounding unconvincing to Connor’s ears.

“But you do!” Connor said, surprised. Overwhelmed by the wave of giddiness that came with the realisation, hysteric laughter bubbled up from his chest. His whole body started to shake with it, making him forget the terrible headache and the more than odd circumstances. 

In one surprisingly smooth and quick motion, Lester turned around, twisting Connor’s fingers off him when his hands slammed against the tiles on each side of Connor’s head. It left no space to speak of between them and let the excited shaking die down to a trembling. Lester was so close; Connor could make out the thin dark blue ring around his otherwise green eyes. He was lost in the sight for the space of a few heartbeats, just staring into them until they dropped to Connor’s lips and Lester started talking again, voice completely controlled and very, very low this time.

“So what if I do? So what if, all of a sudden, I decided to act on it?” He sounded dangerous and Connor found his own mouth dry as he tried to swallow again. Instead, he averted his eyes, searching for something to focus on, something to lessen the sudden intensity of the situation. Only Lester didn’t let him. He put a finger under Connor’s chin and tilted his head up, looking at him as if saying ‘You started this. You better pay attention now.’

“How long until you realise that this is a mistake, that it’s more complicated than you thought it would be? How long until you forget about what your dick wants and start thinking? How long until you lose interest?”

Connor blushed fiercely at hearing Lester use the word dick and felt like a small part of his brain had imploded at the sound of it. He struggled a little to make sense of what Lester just said, most of his thoughts still occupied with screaming ‘ _He’s right there_!’

“I…. um…” he started intelligently and stopped again. “Why do you think that?” he asked eventually, soft and quiet and a whole lot calmer than he felt.

A long suffering sigh made it past Lester’s lips and he hung his head, his hair brushing over Connor’s skin in the process. When he lifted it again, the dangerous intensity was all but gone from his face, and he just looked tired. “You’re young, Connor. You just have a bit of a crush on me and you’re not thinking about any of the complications. I’m older than you, still married, have children and I’m your boss. Those are a few nice hurdles for starters, don’t you think?”

Connor contemplated that, running the words through his head again. “But… you’re not weirded out or anything,” he stated. Lester shot him an exasperated look, like he’d thought Connor was smarter than this and was now a bit disappointed in him. God, the man was good with conveying his thoughts without saying anything. 

“Because you… this… it’s not one-sided, is it?” he asked carefully, hating how he sounded so vulnerable.

Lester sat back on his haunches, his arms drawing back and coming to rest on his knees. He was still very close, only now it felt less forced when he looked at the younger man. “No, Connor, it’s not. I thought you’d picked up on that by now.”

Connor licked his lips nervously and nodded. He was hyperaware of the way Lester’s eyes followed the movement and found it harder to remember why they couldn’t just forget about the talking right now. It would only confirm what Lester was already thinking – that he hadn’t thought this through. And, okay, so he hadn’t really thought this was possible, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t serious. So instead of asking, ‘Then why aren’t you kissing me right now?’ Connor swallowed hard and asked, 

“What do you mean by ‘still’ married?”

“Just what I said. I’m still married and I don’t know how long it will take before the divorce goes through.” 

Connor’s mouth dropped open. “You’re getting divorced?” 

“What did I just say?” Lester retorted and looked severely tempted to smack Connor upside the head. Not something he wanted to talk about particularly then.

“Right.” Casting his eyes downwards, he spotted a loose strand on his jeans and began to fidget with it. What were the other things Lester had listed? He was reasonably sure he could dismantle all of them. “When… If I slept with you,” he felt Lester’s eyes snap up at that and felt his cheeks heat up. He had to inhale deeply before he could continue without stumbling over his own tongue again. He was trying to prove his maturity here, and blushing like a teenager really didn’t help. “If I slept with you, would you stop yelling at me if I screwed up at work?”

He peeked up carefully from under his eyelashes to see Lester frown. 

“Of course not.”

“Would you stop making jokes about my outfits or my work methods?”

Lester snorted. “What work methods?”

Connor grinned shyly. “So you wouldn’t treat me any differently because of it.”

He could see the exact moment Lester caught up with him, it was accompanied by a deepened frown and then his eyes widening ever so slightly before narrowing. Connor hurriedly continued.

“I don’t have problems with you being older than me and I already know how prickly you can be and I’ve still fallen for you.  And. And I like children, so that’s not a real problem either and I really think this could work,” he finished quickly and pressed his eyes shut; praying that this would end well, because he’d just insulted and confessed to his boss in the same sentence.

Opposite him, Lester made a sound that sounded suspiciously like suppressed chuckling. More than a little scared, Connor pried one eye open to check for any signs of immediate danger and then opened the other one in surprise that Lester really was chuckling. Or, just a step away from outright laughing at him, rather. 

“That would’ve been so much more convincing if you didn’t look absolutely terrified while saying it,” he got out, now clearly on the brink of a laughing fit. And Connor couldn’t help himself, he grinned, the hysteria sweeping him along and taking some of the nervousness with it.

The laughter died down very slowly and Lester shook his head several times as if to shoo away the last remnants of it. Tentatively, Connor reached out to softly tap Lester on the shoulder with an index finger. He was rewarded by the sight of light green eyes shining with mirth and a completely relaxed expression that left him breathless. And Lester looked like he found something he liked in the way Connor looked at him as well; because he repeated his earlier motion of tilting Connor’s chin up and watched him thoughtfully.

“You’re sure about this,” he half-asked, half-asserted and Connor nodded immediately and said “Yeah. Yes!” as if scared that Lester could misinterpret his answer otherwise. “On your head be it then,” he murmured and finally closed the small distance between them to kiss the younger man.

It was nothing like and everything Connor had imagined at the same time. It wasn’t that different from kissing a girl, except for the bit of stubble he could feel against his upper lip and Lester _was_ an excellent kisser. He easily slipped his tongue into Connor’s mouth, running it against his tongue before sucking on it with intent; drawing out a slight moan from Connor in the process. The hand that wasn’t cupping his chin was sliding up his neck and into the soft hair, entwining his fingers in it and pulling strong enough to make him gasp into Lester’s mouth but not enough to really hurt. 

By the time Lester pulled back, Connor was so entirely caught up in it that he just sat there with his lips parted for a moment longer before he could even open his eyes again. He had to blink several times to make sure he wasn’t imagining the smug look on Lester’s face and the reddened lips. The thought that he’d done that sent shivers up his spine, up to where Lester’s hand was still buried in his hair, and, _God_ , that felt good. His own hands were hanging uselessly in the hair, as if he was about to grab something but then had forgotten about it half-way through.

“Speechless looks good on you,” Lester informed him with a smirk and Connor wasn’t sure if he wanted to hit him or kiss him again. Though the latter would benefit them both, he decided and delved forward. It was a start, no matter what would follow next.


End file.
